Psychful

Neural Feedback, an article by Ferris Jabr in the November 2010 issue of Scientific American MIND reports on research conducted by neurobiologists at Yale University.  The researchers discovered that the brain can change itself.

“Although scientists have long known that external sources of electricity (such as electroshock therapy) can alter brain function, this is the first direct evidence that the brain’s native electric field changes the way the brain behaves.”

A neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge was very excited by the research.

“We knew that weak electric fields could impact brain activity, but what no one had really tested before was whether electric fields produced by the brain itself could influence its own activity.”

It is a shame that acclaimed neuroscientists can regard these findings with awe while apparently remaining ignorant of decades of research on EEG biofeedback, or neurofeedback.  Everyday thousands of neurofeedback practitioners around the world help patients train their own brains out of debilitating symptoms from conditions like ADHD, PTSD, seizures, and mild traumatic brain injury.  Non-invasive neurofeedback enables the patient’s brain to “correct” itself by providing instantaneous auditory, visual and tactile feedback of brain activity in a comfortable clinical setting.  As one of my patients described the process to his neurologist, “I just sit in the chair watching a movie with wires on my head, and my migraines are going away.”

“Fröhlich [one of the primary researchers in the study] sees therapeutic applications as well, particularly in improving a promising technique called transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS), which applies weak electric fields to the scalp to treat, for example, depression and chronic pain.”

Here is revealed the prominent medical bias in our society today: if there is going to be a worthwhile treatment for brain conditions, then it must surely involve an invasive procedure that only physicians can perform.  How could anyone possibly improve their own brains without medical intervention?  Ask anyone who has enjoyed the benefits of neurofeedback.